You don’t choose anxiety; it chooses you. A four year old doesn’t choose to pee herself because she’s too self-conscious to ask to go to the bathroom. A seven year old doesn’t stay up all night after hearing a sermon at church, unable to sleep because she’s convinced she will never be able to confess all her sins properly and she knows she’s going to hell. A 12-year old doesn’t collect strands of her mother’s hair and save it in a pretty foiled box that used to hold a Christmas present because she can’t stop thinking about her mother’s mortality and these are her silvery talismans. A 19-year old doesn’t skip college classes – not because she doesn’t like the subject or because she’s not smart enough, but because she’s 10 minutes late and she cannot bear the thought of other people’s eyes on her as she walks to her seat. A 30-year old doesn’t long to wake up in the night with chest pains and shortness of breath that feel like what she imagines a heart attack must feel like, except it passes and she feels foolish and exhausted afterwards. A 40-year old hates it that places like the bank and the post office trigger dread and avoidance for no logical reason at all.

Anxiety chose me, but I chose to change my relationship with it. I imagined my anxiety as an amorphous blob. When I tried in my primitive way to sketch it, it came out looking like a vaguely worried potato, which was kind of perfect, actually. It was clear we were going to have to live together, so I decided to make my Anxiety Blob something cuddly. One day, one of my amazing Sweatpants & Coffee team members, Shandle Blaha, contacted her friend at Fleece Menagerie and asked her to bring my sketch to life. Anxiety Blob was born into the world.

It’s been a challenging journey for me, these past few months, and I’ve never needed my Anxiety Blob more. I cuddle him. I cry into him. He witnesses me when I can’t sleep or when I’m angry at EVERYTHING or when all I can manage is to lay in bed like a piece of boiled asparagus; limp and unresponsive. He helps me to remember that anxious is how I feel, not who I am. Be kind to yourself. Cuddle your fears. And know that you are not alone.

We’re proud to partner with Wear Your Label, a brand dedicated to eradicating the stigma associated with mental illness, for this giveaway.

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Nanea Hoffman is the founder of Sweatpants & Coffee. She writes, she makes things, and she drinks an inordinate amount of coffee. She is also extremely fond of sweatpants. She believes in love, peace, joy, comfort, and caffeinated beverages.